As I understand it, the "truth in advertising" laws have really put a crimp in a lot of the really creative techniques in food photography. Apparently they don't like it if you need a bottle of glycerin to make every recipe actually look edible .

Many years ago I worked with a photographer who had shot 4x5 colour negatives of all of a chain restaurants standard menu items. Each time the restaurant expanded (and they did a lot of expanding then) the owners would order another set of colour corrected 8x10s of each item. They didn't use them for promotion - they used them in the kitchens as a visual reference to be used by the chefs and food preparation staff. That way, if a customer went to one of their restaurants and enjoyed a menu item, the customer could later go to another of the chain's outlets, order the same item, and receive a meal that was prepared and presented in a similar manner.

Matt

“Photography is a complex and fluid medium, and its many factors are not applied in simple sequence. Rather, the process may be likened to the art of the juggler in keeping many balls in the air at one time!”

Ansel Adams, from the introduction to The Negative - The New Ansel Adams Photography Series / Book 2